Читать онлайн «The Woman For Dusty Conrad»

TORI CARRINGTON

In loving memory of Kostoula Karayianni, who dedicated more than twenty-five years to the Athens Fire Department, and her entire life to her family. You are deeply missed.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 1

Dusty Conrad’s mission was simple. Go into the firehouse. Seek out Jolie. Get her to sign the divorce papers she’d had for two months. Move on with his life. Let Jolie get on with hers.

Simple. Right. Then why was he driving around the narrow, tree-lined streets of Old Orchard, going everywhere but the fire station?

Dusty tightened his hands on the steering wheel of the shiny red pickup and visually inhaled his surroundings. He took in the hay bundles decorated with pumpkins, the witch and black-cat decals clinging to the windows of the older homes that lined Main Street, the colorful mums dotting nearly every free space. Funny. Only six months had passed since he’d left. Somehow it seemed just like yesterday. Except that now the town had on its Halloween best, ready to partake in the spooky festivities unquestionably scheduled for the weekend. Six months ago budding tree branches had borne pastel eggs and windows had sported cute caricatures of rabbits and baskets.

Bustling was one word he’d never use to describe the Rockwellesque streets of Old Orchard, Ohio. No. Rather the word sluggish came to mind as he left the residential section of Main and slowly drove into the quaint downtown area. As he veered to the right to navigate around Lucas Circle, he watched young Dana Malone as she tried to teach her son Josh how to look both ways before crossing the street. The toddler, however, seemed to have other ideas, like trying to climb into the gargantuan water fountain that had been designed some hundred and twenty years ago. The entire town had been built around Lucas Circle. It was where all town functions began and ended, the town meeting spot for union support rallies and carnivals alike. Just like the old, hulking cement structure of Old Jake’s, a general store where everyone still shopped, despite the spreading cancer of strip malls a mere five-minute drive away.

He supposed the word town no longer fit the growing city now estimated at forty-five thousand. But while the modern semi-new hospital on the opposite end of Main Street and several towering office buildings had altered the skyline a bit, the heart of downtown looked pretty much as it had a century earlier. Three-and four-story brick buildings crouched side by side for blocks on either side of Main Street and Old Orchard Avenue, storefronts holding advertisements for seven dollar haircuts, sporting neon beer signs and announcing daily specials. With the majestic trees, the old stone library and the turn-of-the-century church, the small-town flavor remained. An essence carefully and lovingly tended to by Old Orchard’s citizens, the majority of whom still chose to walk instead of drive, frequented the smaller shops rather than heading out to the cheaper strip malls and large chain stores nearby, and were never too busy to say hello and stop for a brief chat, or help out a neighbor in need. It was a place where if you didn’t directly know a person, you knew someone who did. Some might find conversations dotted with “you know, Jim Olsen’s cousin’s husband’s aunt” difficult to follow, but here such connections were the norm.